Muddle,


This is the conclusion that most BS's must come to when the WS refuses to stop the affair.

As you say, nothing but time can provide an answer.

However, I further recommend WORKING the MB PLANS....

Otherwise, the A can be ENABLED....

I don't know. I guess my WH is the exception.

He's been living with OW now for 7 mos. Just extended his lease and put her on it.

Her D was final a few weeks ago.

Them living together doesn't seem to be affecting their relationship at all.

I've exposed. didn't faze them.

Cat:

Have you been in PLAN B?

My WW has been involved in a romantic affair for 20 months now and left me and our 4 kids 3 months ago. I've been in plan B for only 2 weeks. The kids are refusing to have any contact with their mother. I cannot imagine how difficult this must be for her but she has made a choice.The 'in love' state must be a very powerful emotion when it can take a 48 yr. old devoted wife and mother and change her into a woman who would abandon her own family and play a leading role in destroying the OM's family

Yes, it certainly is. This forum is loaded with tales of waywards discarding almost everything to pursue their "soulmate." More than a few suicides and murders have resulted from infidelity, too.

I can't help but think that the suicide and murder rate would go down for people who have been on this sight.
I never considered either and never would but I know this sight has helped me get through the emotional pain better than..............we'll, better than anything else I could imagine.

Does anyone here know of this happening to people who have posted here in the past?

JS

I am not aware of it, but I agree with you that just finding others on this website who are enduring the same pain and who can really understand what you are going through helps "get you through it."

Here is another Pittman quote about infidelity:

I've not read anything from Pittman but this quote has certainly got me thinking.
Very wise man.

What are some of his book titles you liked?

I honestly believe this site lower's that fact for those who attend and try and work things out.... I did read somewhere's that for those that are disposed to suicide it would be after all the attention is gone and it would be an act of last desperation. I think I also read that most suicides are for the attention not the ending act.... to bad you can't go back and ask the ones that did if they really meant to do it.

Does anyone find that spouses in RA's try and keep the chaos going vs someone that is just trying to have an affair and move on aftewards, either to divorce or back to their spouse. I know that we say RA's act insane sometimes, and their actions only seem reasonable to them vs the rest of the world.

I also think RA's exhibit the most common characteristics of a Passive Agressive / Narcissist and what I have read on those its pretty self destructive.

Well, Private Lies: Infidelity and the Betrayal of Intimacy is the best, but he was also a regular contributor to Psychology Today magazine through the 1990s and many of those articles are very good. His most recent book is Grow Up!, a book which essentially promotes the idea of taking responisbility for one's own actions.

Dr. Pittman has been practicing over 30 years in Atlanta and has seen thousands of patients suffering from the tragic consequences of infidelity.

Viking,

The tag "narcissist" definitely applies to people engaged in romantic affairs, though not all are passive/aggressive.

Whether this narcissism is a permanent part of their personality or a temporary condition like the apparent insanity itself is questionable.

Those who leave, and don't come back, must have at least 'residual' traces of NPD in them, even pre-affair, especially when there are children involved.

Those who show no remorse, even after years, must have NPD. After the 'fog has lifted, and they still think they were justified - surely these adulterors think they are the most important people in the world - ex-spouses and children be d*mned.

Alph.

A very good point. These people are probably masters at self-deception and guilt suppression.

I find that the more intelligent a person, the easier it is for them to come up with clever, almost believable, rationalizations for their behavior.

I never would have thought my W was a narcisist before, but with all that has happened I see many reasons to think so. I certainly hope it's just a phase, but I'm not sure. She projects a lot, and in so doing often finds fault in me when I express my opinion about how I'd like to do something because "all I ever think about is myself!" No negotiations are possible, if I present my opinion she takes it as me exerting my will on her and uses this to "prove" that I oppress her. That and she truly believes that by changing her feelings or her inner reality a change in the external reality must occur (abstract, I know, but it seems such a pervasive truism). But then again, isn't this at the core of the resentment issue with everyone? Isn't resentment an immature attempt to change and take control of what is happening in a relationship by manipulating your own feelings? Haven't we all done this?

Muddled, did you miss this? I posted this yesterday.

Yes I missed it yesterday - sorry.

The trouble is that my cousin is in Europe and we're in the US. He can't move here without a work visa and there's not much of a market for his line of work here. He'll need to sacrifice everything - friends, family, career, etc - to move here, which I'm sure he's *willing* to do (if only to feed the passion of the affair). She can't move there for similar reasons, but the biggest being our son. She's not willing to walk out on him. As for plan B, we can't afford to separate now.

We have talked about separating and things are somewhat contingent on her getting on her feet as I can't kick her out (I can't afford the apartment without her income - and I don't think I have any legal recourse for doing so either) and we can't move into separate places on our income. Another reason why this affair makes no sense - the realities of life are so starkly oppossed to it!

As far as going dark while we live together goes, I've tried to do so (but it comes across as PA behavior on my part when I do so because she's so dependent on me and thinks she's entitled to my *services*). There has been some re-exposure that seems to be taking its toll on the A (it's nearly impossible to tell - I've thought it was ending before) because my W has been crying a lot while IMing with OM. I plan to see this through, living this way in a plan A state until the end of the year. Then things will happen if the affair has not ended.

Interesting. My ex has a very high IQ, and he's certainly come up with some great justifications. On d/day he virtually rattled them off, one by one, on his fingers. Alomst all of them related to how he wasn't appreciated enough by me.

Is narcissim itself related to IQ? My ex has always been pretty arrogant about his intelligence, and often talked to me (and others - particularly his younger brother) as if I were a silly child.

Alph.

I have never read anything that indicates a direct relationship between narcissism and intelligence. Strictly speaking, intelligence as measured by IQ should be totally unrelated to the part of the brain that controls emotion, where narcissism is definitely a product of an emotionally-affected view of oneself.

Now one could speak of emotional IQ, which would certainly be affected by narcissitic tendencies.

You could interchange the words "oppress" for "control" and I can say I have seen people use that tactic dozens of times as a way of trying to devalue any expression of an opinion that contradicts their own.